When The Village plopped on my mat from my DVD rental service I couldn’t remember what it was about and why I had added it. It is written, produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan who is most famous for Sixth Sense, which I imagine is what intrigued me, although his subsequent films such as Unbreakable and Signs have not had the same commercial or critical success, nor did I enjoy them as much.

The film is set in an isolated, rural Pennsylvanian village in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The village is surrounded by a forest which contains strange, mythical creatures that are not always friendly.

Because of them the villagers do not venture into the forest and therefore do not leave the village.

When a child dies, Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix) offers to travel through the forest to get medicine from nearby towns, but the village elders refuse to allow him to go. We also get an idea of village life, and how inward looking and superstitious it is. There is often a night lookout watching for the unnamed creatures (referred to only as Those Of Whom We Do Not Speak) from the forest and red is considered a bad colour that is banned in the village as it represents the creatures.

This is really a character led drama and love story rather than a horror film, though. The film has an impressive ensemble cast headed by Bryce Dallas Howard (daughter of director Ron Howard) as blind Ivy Walker who falls in love with Lucius. However, Noah (Adrien Brody), a mentally handicapped man in the village also loves Ivy and wants to keep her for himself and this is where tragedy strikes meaning that it is Ivy who has to go through the forest to get medicine from a nearby town.

From

http://essexgirl2004.blogspot.com/2006/12/if-you-go-down-to-woods-today.html